ECF wants to create a new brochure.

We really want to bust all those myths about cycling. We want to produce a nice little PDF document that you can send to your mayor, your transport minister, and maybe some local planners which blows apart many of the excuses that we hear time and time again.

Once we’ve got some input, we’ll select ten myths and do our research, and then publish a document in the coming weeks.

We want your help!

That’s right. We want to milk you for your ideas. All those that follow us on twitter have come up against many a politician who just doesn’t want to hear about cycling. So tell us about all the myths you’ve heard.

Making people register to use bicycles would mainly serve as a barrier to greater levels of cycling.

And this, deep down, is what many motorists probably want. They want us out of “their” way, off “their” roads. Cyclists are pesky and slow, goes the unthinking thinking. They ride two or more abreast; they wear Lycra; they slow down legitimate – ie motorised – road traffic.

Those who want cyclists to be registered, want them to display their registration details on big number plates. They may also want bikes to carry signal indicators. Maybe another two wheels would be good, too. And an engine. Oh, hang on, that’s a car.

When you hear a call for bicycle licensing and excise taxes (“just pennies a day, why would you object to that?”) it’s not a call for fair-play, it’s a call to drive everywhere.

Those who want cyclists to be registered, pay ‘road’ tax and apply for licences to cycle don’t want to share the road with lots of licensed, fee-paying cyclists, they want less cyclists full-stop. The ‘no pay, no say’ crowd would use any payment as a “but you don’t pay enough” argument.

“You can’t ride on hills”: People used to ride bicycles for decades and decades in cities with hills. There is no reason they can’t continue to do so. Cycling is booming in San Francisco, the second largest city in Denmark, Aarhus, is hilly (25% modal share) as is Stockholm (10% modal share), Barcelona (4% and rising), Gothenburg (6%) and so on and so on.

“You can’t ride in winter” or if you do “You need hightech sports clothes”: Goodness. How do Citizen Cyclists all over Europe manage?! They just wear the same winter clothes they would if they were walking. Towns like Oulu, Finland (20% modal share) and Västerås, Sweden (30%) have good, cold winters and they manage. Copenhagen, over the past two years, has been slammed with Arctic winters and still a few hundred thousand people ride their bicycles.